Emily Dickinson: A Second Look

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Published: September 6, 2012

In her own words Emily Dickinson said she was ''small, like the wren; and my hair is bold, like the chestnut burr; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.'' (She also had a strange propensity for accepting rides from carriage drivers who are the physical embodiment of Death.) But what did that celebrated Massachusetts poet, who died in 1886 -- long before the ubiquity of Instagram -- actually look like? Until now only one authenticated portrait of Dickinson as an adult, a daguerreotype showing her sitting upright in a chair, was known to exist. But as The Guardian of London reports, a second image of Dickinson, with a smile on her face and a friend by her side, may have been confirmed.

The Amherst College Archives and Special Collections are now displaying a second daguerreotype that the college says depicts Dickinson and her friend Kate Scott Turner, probably taken around 1859 on a visit to the college. The picture, purchased in 1995 by a collector who presented it to Amherst in 2007, was shown during an August conference of the Emily Dickinson International Society.

The college says various tests, including the cross-referencing of fabrics seen in the photo and found in the textile collection of the Emily Dickinson Museum (as well as boring old computer scans), probably prove the image's authenticity. Forestalling any skeptics who might say that the dress worn by Dickinson in the picture is out of date by 1850s standards, Amherst cites a letter she wrote to Abiah Root in 1854: ''I'm so old fashioned, Darling, that all your friends would stare.'' DAVE ITZKOFF

PHOTOS: Emily Dickinson, below, and above left, with a friend, Kate Scott Turner, around 1859. (PHOTOGRAPH BY AMHERST COLLEGE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS)